[Milsurplus] [Glowbugs] CW "de" ?

[Hubert Miller]

I looked again at this book, "A Digest of Naval Communications: A Text Book for the Instruction of Midshipmen....", U.S. Naval Institute 1928.
Communications from one Navy call to another, in the examples shown, ALWAYS use "V".
BUT - get this example of a message as i gather from the book - not totally clear in text - message as handed off to radio communications:
 
CT RADIO DE USS WYOMING 1 11 7:00PM  SIXTEENTH
AMERICAN AMBASSADOR 
PARIS...  

( rest of text follows.)   This is odd, you'd think the message would not be sent this way, "7:00PM" - but the other examples of Navy-to-Navy
(only) messages use time the standard way, "0740".

So even if the radio operator formatted the above message to meet international standards, it maybe suggests that the Navy did use "DE"
in traffice to non-Navy stations, where "DE" was the standard.

The book comes right at a transitional period to HF radio. It says long range "Primary" land stations use frequencies < 46 kHz; "Fleet Stations"
use 46-75 kHz, with 75 as the "calling frequency". "Coastal stations call on the standard calling frequency, 315 kHz."  "Due to recent developments
high frequencies between 4000 and 23,000 kilocycles ae also being used at high powered and fleet stations....."
-Hue Miller 


>The 1929 Navy communications instructions show only V (except for comms with merchant ships) so it was in use long before WW2.

"1028. The call sign of the station which has made the call or has transmitted a message,
separated from that of the station answering by the sign "V" (from), and followed by appropriate
procedure sign(s) is the normal method of answering.
Example: AB having called CD, CD might answer: AB V CD K."

I have 1913 and 1918 USN manuals which show DE.

It looks to me like the change happened some time after WW1 and lasted until approx 1953. I found a 1954 NAVPERS manual with DE but a 1952 one with V.


Nick England K4NYW
http://www.navy-radio.com